Vazhaithandu Lemon Rasam Recipe - Banana Stem Lemon Rasam

Plantain stem is a high fiber content vegetable and is also good for people with diabetes, high cholesterol and kidney stone.

https://www.archanaskitchen.com/vaazaithandu-lemon-rasam-recipe-plantain-stem-lemon-rasam

Easy Ways to Reduce Cholesterol & Raise Energy Levels

Some super-easy ways to reduce cholesterol AND raise your energy levels. I have very little free time, no time-consuming complicated recipes on this blog - so read on, have no fear.  :)  These are some simple every-day things that you can include in your regular meals, this is not a full meal plan.

Morning

• Have 6-8 overnight soaked and peeled almonds on an empty stomach. Increases good cholesterol big time, also high in vitamin E, calcium, phosphorus, iron, magnesium etc.
• Overnight oats.  Soak a cup of oats in milk the previous night. Add nuts and cut fruits. Keep in fridge, have in the morning.
• Oats Omelette. A good way of getting the oats in. :)
• Banana Walnut Smoothies: Great way to start your day!
• Cold banana milk shake is also a great way to reduce acidity and calm the stomach, apart from getting a boost of energy.
• Make Oats dosa. Keep powdered oats ready. Add some rice powder and rava to help make it crispy. Also some wheat flour if you want. Add water and mix well to flowing consistency. Cook on a non-stick pan. Goes with sambar, podi, chutneys etc.
• Dosas: Probably one of the easiest tastiest ways to improve your family's health! Getting a table-top dosa grinder and making your own batter is one of the best investments you can make in your family's health. Nutrition-packed super-crispy dosas that I have been making for more than a decade. Really makes for a great start to the day. See photo in this post - tastes as good as it looks, I have guests who eat 8-12 of them. :)
• Fragrant crispy Adai with Saunf and Green Leaves. Add drumstick leaves if you can get.
• Green gram dosa with spinach. Again, super-easy!
• Add these ingredients to coconut/peanut/any other chutney - all cholesterol-reducing agents.
• Always add a green leafy vegetable in your omelette. Along with crushed garlic.
• Have Fish Liver oil supplement tablets after breakfast if you can't have fish regularly. Great way to get those Omega 3 Fatty acids in, a great way to reduce cholesterol. Seven Seas cod liver oil is easily available in all medical shops.

Lunch

• Rajma, kabuli chana, black chickpeas (kadalai) are excellent sources of high fibre, which helps reduce cholesterol. You can either have them as a dish (with little oil) or as salads.
• For salads: Add cut onions, green chillies, tomatoes/lime juice, coriander leaves, and peanuts to make a very tasty salad. You can add olive oil and avocado in these salads, which is another great way to increase HDL.
• If you are just having cucumber/onion/tomato/carrot salad, add some olive oil to it. With some salt and pepper for taste if needed.
• Add olive oil to your chapathis, while mixing the dough.
• Garlic Yogurt salad dressing: A great way of getting raw garlic in. Crush some fresh garlic and add to curd. Add a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper to taste. Beat well to make a dressing. You could also add lemon juice and oregano to this.
• Flax seed powder: Super-excellent for cholesterol. You get flax seed chutney powder. I add it in my dosa recipe, see above. Another great way, I believe, is adding a bit in chappati atta.
• Avocado salads. This powerhouse of nutrients contains good fats that reduce cholesterol. Make easy salads with it with onions, chillies, coriander, lemon juice/tomatoes, peanuts etc.
• Grilled or steamed fish, or curry, if you have non-veg. Kerala fish curry, without oil.
• Drumstick/Muringa Leaf Soup. A powerhouse of nutrition and energy - and so easy it is ridiculous. :)  Just boil a whole bunch of leaves in a cooker with lots of water. Cool, strain out the leaves. Add some crushed pepper, salt, lemon juice. That's it! :) Take in a flask to work and sip all day - really raises your energy levels.
• Chicken. Apart from curries, you can cook chicken in a cooker with salt and pepper, shred and make great chicken sandwiches with other fresh ingredients.
• Groundnut Chutney powder, North Karnataka style - great way to introduce the goodness of fresh groundnut and garlic. Super-simple recipe. You can use it to make a chapathi roll or add it to dry subjis in the end, or add to sandwiches - very versatile!
• Kichdi: This is the easiest one dish you can make at one go, and pack every possible nutrient into it.
• Add millets to your diet. It is in my dosa and kichdi recipes. I also cook regular meals with half-glass rice, half-glass millets - add a little less water, 2 glasses instead of 2.5. The whiter millets really blend in and cook well, does not change taste.
• Raw onions: I believe, lower bad cholesterol, because of the flavonoids in them. Salads are obviously a great way. Or peanut masala! :) Though to be avoided if you are having antidiabetic medicines, according to this link.  

Dinner

• You could use the salads mentioned above.
• Soups made of various high-fibre vegetables - like green peas, broccoli, spinach, cauliflower, mushroom.
• Basic soup recipe: Fry some onion, add chopped garlic and stir for a min. Add your vegetable and stir-fry for a minute. Now cook/pressure cook with some water. Cool and blend. Add pepper, salt, herbs and bring to a boil. Simple! :)  Tastes really good. Add some lemon juice at the end to bring in a tangy flavor.
• Green peas and mint soup. Just boil green peas in a cooker. Cool and blend with fresh mint leaves. Add crushed pepper and salt. That's it. :) Very tasty, and the mint gives a very fresh taste.
• Super-easy Chicken Soup recipe here. 
• Raw Garlic Chutney: Raw garlic is supposed to be good to reduce cholesterol and is generally good for the heart and digestion, I believe - this chutney retains its goodness without its sharp taste.

Very happy to learn recipes from others, so please share, thank you. :)

Oats Dosa/Pancake!

Oats dosas by my friend Venkat, his attempt came out better than mine!

Call it dosa or pancake, a great way to get that blah-oats in and reduce your cholesterol levels, without lowering your happiness levels! And you also eat a green leafy vegetable in the bargain, and you won't even notice it!

I did not use any of the dry powders, it still came out well. Note that the batter has to be watery - you pour it in the centre of a hot non-stick pan, take it off the stove and twirl it until the batter spreads around. Can't twirl only your arm? Neither can I! Just twirl your whole body, it works - just make sure there are no family members with a sense of humour in the kitchen with you! If you've learnt Tai Chi, it helps, you almost get the feeling you're practising martial arts with a pan, not acting cuckoo in the kitchen.

After you have made one dosa, the pan will be very hot. Take it off the stove and wave it sideways a few times to bring it down to bearable heat, before pouring the next ladle of batter. May be wise to keep burnable objects, like people, out of the kitchen :)

Got it from here: http://food.sulekha.com/oat-pancake-id25353-39361-recipe.htm

Ingrediants

1. Oats Powder- 1/2 cup (Just powder the oats well in a mixie! - actually my friend Venkat made it without powdering, came out great he says)
2. Onion- 1/2 chopped finely
3. Tomato - 1/2 chopped finely
4. Finely Chopped Green chilli- 1/2
5. Kasoori methi- 1/2 tsp (dried methi leaves - great for diabetics, you get it in any grocery shop. Don't have it at home now? Be brave, go ahead and make the dosa without it, still tastes good!)
6. Coriander leaves- 1/2 tbsp chopped
7. Red chiili powder- 1/4 tsp (I didn't use any of these powders)
8. Turmeric powder- a pinch
9. Garam masala- 1 to 2 pinch
10. Salt
11. Water- 3/4 cup

Method

1. Take a bowl mix all the ingredients,add water to make it as a batter of pouring consistency.
2. Heat a non-stick pan, spread the batter to make it as a pancake,add oil/ghee if you want - not needed.Cook on both sides.
3. Serve hot with tomato chutney or mint chutney - or chutney powder and curd, or pickle....

Recipe for Venkat's onion-tomato chutney, the one in the photo, here.

Groundnut Chutney Powder (North Karnataka Style)

To think that I did not post this before! An easy way to get healthy groundnuts, garlic and curry leaves in, and goes well with chapathis and rice and as sandwich filling. See picture in the Palak Chapathis post below.

Ingrediants

1. Groundnuts - roasted, skin removed
2. Peeled garlic, as much as you can take :)
3. Red chilly powder  - choose a chilly that has a great colour, like the Kashimir chillies. They use the byedagi chillies in North Karnataka - such a brilliant red!
4. Curry leaves - washed and dried. One big twig-worth of leaves or less.
5. Salt

Procedure

Grind it all together in the mixie! Adjust salt, garlic, chilly, curry leaf according to your taste - highlight the flavor you want!

Raw Garlic Chutney

From my friend Rekha, who is from North Karnataka:

 

"This is my mother-in-law's recipe for healthy bones, especially for women:

 

Ingredients

 

1. Garlic - 6 raw
2. Onions - 6 small (shallots, sambar onions)
3. Curry leaves - a bunch, fresh
4. Tamrind pulp
5. Red chilly powder - for this I roast dry red chillies at home and powder them in a mixer
6. Jaggery
7. Mustard seeds 2 tea spoons
8. Jeera - 2 teaspoons
9. Coriander seeds - 3 teaspoons

 

Procedure

 

1. You need to fry all the ingredients except the garlic. (Onions, curry leaves, seeds)
2. Grind all the fried ingredients.
3. Now grind the raw garlic seperately and mix it with the ground paste.
4. Add tamarind, jaggery, salt and red chilly powder as per your taste.
5. Fill it in a bottle and keep it in the fridge.
6. You can eat this  with chapatis, dosas and hot rice with little ghee.

 

This gives a lot of strength to the bones and helps reduce cholestrol
I have eaten this chutney though I hate raw garlic and believe me it has reduced my back ache to a large extent."

To Reduce Cholesterol

This is something my sister-in-law has tried successfully on my brother who had high cholesterol. My father, who's a cardiologist, and who was monitoring my brother's cholesterol levels, was surprised to see the reduction in cholesterol levels in a month!

Ingredients

Fresh Garlic: A tablespoonful, peeled (My sister-in-law roasts this for a few seconds with skin on, on a tava, to take away the pungency a bit)
Fresh Curry Leaves: A tablespoonful (soak in water with salt and turmeric powder for 15 mins if you want to make sure it's really clean)
Shallots (Sambar Onion): 5-6 peeled

Procedure

Grind all three, make a  chutney. Have once a day, mixed with any kind of food. Rice and dal is a good camouflage :)  You can be innovative and grind this with other ingredients that may take away the pungency - like tamarind.

Tip from my friend Anil: Curry leaves chutney and curry leaves in butter milk (with complete removal of butter version) is a medicine to reduce  cholesterol.


How to include garlic, curry leaves and/or shallots in your diet

Chutneys are obviously the best way to get these in fresh. I use these in various cooked dishes too, see labels.


Curry Leaf Chutney

I use this in my chutney - see post below - though it has coconut, not sure people with high cholesterol are allowed that.

Groundnut Chutney

Grind roasted groundnuts with some garlic and curry leaves and red chilly to make chutney powder.

More Oats Recipes

Have not yet tried these out -

Oats Banana Sheera

http://www.tarladalal.com/Oats-Banana-Sheera-(-Eat-Well-Stay-Well-Recipes-)-33459r

Oats Upma

http://www.vegetarianrecipes.net/oats-upma/

Oats Rava Wheat Dosa

This came out real nice. The only thing you need to be careful about is the spreading - the batter has to be watery, like in rava dosa (which I never get right) - so you must pour a ladle-full of watery batter (on a tava that is hot, but not steaming hot) and just shake the non-stick pan bending it in all directions a little to get that round shape - so the batter will spread evenly. Don't try to spread with the ladle, it will break. As you can see, I am not overly bothered about the shape when it comes to such dosas, I love geography :)

Ingredients:

This measurement gave me 6 dosas.

1. Oats - 1cup
2. Ravai - 1\4cup
3. Wheat - 3/4cup
4. Onion - 1
5. Green chillies - 2
6. Cumin seeds - 2tsp
7. Pepper - 1tsp ( I just added some pepper powder to the batter)
8. Oil

Procedure:

1. Dry roast oats and rava separately.
2. Heat 1tbsp of oil and throw finely chopped onions and green chillies, saute it for 2mins, keep it aside.
3. With rest of they oil, add peeper and cumin seeds , allow it to split and remove from the flame.
4. In a bowl add all the ingredients.. oats, rava, wheat, salt, onions,green chilies, pepper and cumin seeds.
5. With enough water mix it thoroughly to form a uniform watery dosa batter.
6. Heat sauce pan and pour one bowl of dosa batter, pour 1\2 tsp of oil (suggested - Olive Oil)cook one side and turn it on the other side and cook it for 20 sec.
7. Delicious healthy oats dosa ready to be served .

From here: http://spicysouthernfood.blogspot.com/2008/05/quick-oats-dosa.html

This can be had with any of these chutneys: http://noodlesandmangopickle.blogspot.com/search/label/Chutneys

Oats Roti

So I have been trying to find tasty ways of eating oats, which is a rich source of soluble fibre 'Beta-glucan', a potent cholesterol-lowering agent. (http://eatmoreoats.com/health.html).

I don't like oats with milk+fruits, I do eat it, but not with enjoyment :)

So have been trying out recipes I found on the Net. Sharing some of them.

Oats Roti
You can also substitute this for chapathis and have it with curries/sabji, it's quite thin.

1. 1 cup whole wheat flour (gehun ka atta)
2. 1/2 cup quick cooking rolled oats (what you get in packets, the regular one)
3. 1/2 tsp finely chopped green chillies
4. 1/4 cup chopped onions
5. 2 tbsp chopped coriander (dhania leaves)
6. 3/4 tsp salt
7. 2 tsp oil

Method

1. Combine all the ingredients and knead into stiff dough using a little water.
2. Cover and keep aside for 20 minutes.
3. Divide the dough into 6 equal portions. Shape into round balls and roll each ball into 125 mm. (5") diameter rounds using little flour.
4. Cook on a tava (griddle) on both sides till brown spots appear.
5. Serve hot with fresh low fat curds.

From here: http://www.tarladalal.com/Oats-Roti-5286r